I had been thinking of buying an old shutter on eBay, and jerry-rigging it to work with a brass pinhole on my 5x7 camera, but if this thing is everything it looks to be, this may be a much better way to go.

Do any of you know anything about this pinhole shutter? Any comments, good or bad?

Also, can anyone tell me what a zone plate is, and how it differs from a pinhole?

depending on the speed film you'll be using you can probably use either a lens cap or a piece of tape as a shutter. save the $170 for film and paper

a zone plate is a series of concentric rings, while a pinhole is (well) just a hole. a zone plate is much faster as it lets in more light. Here's a brief page that has info on zone plates and sieves: http://www.whizkidtech.redprince.net/zoneplate/

Damn, that sure is a pretty thing. You had the right idea about an inexpensive shutter from Ebay though. But it's not gonna look as good. Titanium! Holy Cow Batman.

Yeah, it sure is perty, but given that my camera is a well-worn Kodak 2-D from the '40s or '50s, it would actually look out of place.

I'm currently using a piece of the black paper that separates the sheets of 5x7 film, folded in half, and attached to the lensboard with a piece of bowler's black tape (knew I'd find a use for that some day).

The problem is that I have to touch the camera and pull off the tape, which makes the camera shake a little bit, just as the light is first hitting the film. I thought of getting a shutter so that I could use a cable release, and avoid "the shakes".

My exposures are usually in the range of 10-40 seconds, so it's not that big of a deal.

The other advantage of this gizmo is that you can very easily swap one pinhole for another. I presently have to remove the lensboard, remove the tape that attaches the pinhole assembly to the board, then replace and retape. That's enough of a pain that I simply don't do it when out in the field.

Tom, thanks for the link to f295 (do you run that site?), and thanks very much for explaining what a zone plate is. Very interesting!

re: field changing pinholes: a device recently "invented" (if that's not too strong a word) by one of the f295 members, is to mount different pinholes in 35mm slide holders, and then he slides them into a self made holder on the camera - it's very slick and easy-- but you'd still have to remove the lens board.

yes, I run the f295 site - i hope you find it helpful.

if i had an extra $170 i'd def. buy the shutter from pinhole resource-- its very nice. on the f295 site there are also several posts on converting old shutters to use with pinhole. the ones on old kodak or agfa folders seem to work great. there are even some plans to build a really simple shutter mechanism using either wood, or aluminum, a spring, and piece of aluminum (which could be salvaged from an altoid tin).

Hi guys and gals,
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I had been thinking of buying an old shutter on eBay, and jerry-rigging it to work with a brass pinhole on my 5x7 camera, but if this thing is everything it looks to be, this may be a much better way to go.
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I modified an old shutter from a Graflex "Speed-I-O-Scope" so that I can switch different pinholes on an 8x10 camera... here's a page describing this:

I've got an old dial-set Compur (which came to me with a Tessar installed, the glass now carefully stored against future need) that I use for pinhole images with my Ziess-Ikon 250/7 plate camera. Works very well, and was about $100 cheaper (including the camera it came on) than that fancy titanium thing.

OTOH, you can make one from brass sheet and a little black felt, plus a 6-32 brass nut, a small spring, and a dollop of solder, that will do everything that one will and cost you around $5 plus a couple hours of enjoyable working time. Used with a locking cable release, it'll stay open as long as you like, and with the cable release lock disabled can be used with good accuracy down to about 1/4 second.

Hmm. Given those prices, maybe I should be making brass ones and selling them on eBay. I should be able to sell 'em at a profit for well under $50...

Photography has always fascinated me -- as a child, simply for the magic of capturing an image onto glossy paper with a little box, but as an adult because of the unique juxtaposition of science and art -- the physics of optics, the mechanics of the camera, the chemistry of film and developer, alongside the art in seeing, composing, exposing, processing and printing.

Another trick is gluing a steel fender washer in front of the aperture, then using a refrigerator magnet (I use the flexible advertising or calendar type polymer magnets). A finger grip can be glued on to make removal from the steel washer easier.

You can also glue plastic colored filters for b/w contrast enhancement to pieces of this magnetic material.